NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Surgery for lung cancer can
have a substantial impact on long-term, health-related quality
of life, the results of a study published in the current issue
of the Journal of Clinical Oncology suggest.

Surgery for early-stage lung cancer is known to have a
substantial impact on health-related quality of life (HRQOL),
but there are few published studies on the what the long-term
affects are, Dr. Patricia Kenny, of the University of
Technology, Sydney, Australia, and colleagues point out.

The researchers examined the short- and long-term HRQOL and
survival 2 years after surgery in 173 patients with stage I or
II non-small cell lung cancer, the most common type of lung
cancer. The patients completed HRQOL questionnaires before
surgery, at discharge, 1 month after surgery, and then every 4
months for the next 2 years.

Overall, 36 percent of patients experienced recurrence of
the cancer within 2 years. Of these, 55 percent received
radiation therapy and 24 percent received chemotherapy for
symptom relief only, because a cure was no longer continued
possible.

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The average time from surgery to disease recurrence was
10.7 months. Postoperative in-hospital mortality was 3 percent.
The 2-year survival rate was 65.2 percent.

The patients showed substantial deterioration in all HRQOL
categories after surgery except for emotional functioning. For
the patients without disease recurrence, HRQOL improved in the
2 years after surgery. However, approximately half of these
patients continued to experience symptoms and functional
limitations.

Patients who experienced disease recurrence within 2 years
had some early postoperative improvement in HRQOL, with
subsequent deterioration in most areas.